I have decided to devote the month of May to all of the memoirs/biographies I own that are languishing on the shelf. There are several about which I am super excited (Jeanette Winterson, Patti Smith, the guy who escaped from the North Korean concentration camp...). I think this is going to be an amazing month with a lot of really fun book reviews. I intend to be more prolific in May than I have been of late! Thankfully, school will be somewhat less stressful.
So far in 2012, I have read 40 books. Here is the list along with my unscientific ratings:
1) Simonson, Helen. Major Pettigrew's Last Stand (5/5)
2) Patchett, Ann. State of Wonder (5/5)
3) Franzen, Jonathan. Freedom (5/5)
4) Chua, Amy. Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother (5/5)
5) Kingsolver, B. The Lacuna (2/5)
6) Brower, Sam. Prophet's Prey: My 7 year investigation into Warren Jeffs (3/5)
7) Persico, Joseph. Franklin and Lucy (5/5)
8) Rubin, Gretchen. The Happiness Project (3/5)
9) Borman, Tracy. Elizabeth's Women: Friends, Rivals, and Foes Who Shaped The Virgin Queen. (5/5)
10) Wiggins, Grant. Understanding by Design (3/5)
11) Drew, Clifford. Designing and Conducting Research in Education (4/5)
12) Rehm, Diane. Finding My Voice (4/5)
13) Morgenstern, E. The Night Circus (4/5)
14) Wolizter, Hilma. An Available Man (5/5)
15) Pratchett, Terry. Good Omens (3/5)
16) Cain, Susan. Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking (5/5)
17) Yuknavitch, L. The Chronology of Water (1/5)
18) Isay, Dave. All There Is: Love Stories From StoryCorps (5/5)
19) Barrows, A. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society (5/5)
20) Ronson, J. The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness Industry (4/5)
21) Binchy, M. Minding Frankie (5/5)
22) Lukeman, N. The Plot Thickens: 8 Ways to Bring Your Fiction to Life (2/5)
23) King, Stephen. On Writing. (5/5)
24) Prose, Francine. Reading Like a Writer (5/5)
25) Giordano, Paulo. The Solitude of Prime Numbers (1/5)
26) Harris, Bob. Prisoner of Trebekistan: A Decade in Jeopardy! (5/5)
27) Seligman, M. Flourish: A Visionary New Understanding of Happiness & Well-Being (3/5)
28) Gottman, J. The Science of Trust (5/5)
29) Seung, S. Connectome: How the Brian's Wiring Makes Us Who We Are (3/5)
30) Shaffer, D. Social and Personality Development (4/5)
31) Rosnay, T. Sarah's Key (1/5)
32) Block, L. A Drop of the Hard Stuff (4/5)
33) Lehrer, J. Imagine: How Creativity Works (5/5)
34) Marcus, B. The Flame Alphabet (4/5)
35) Evans, H. Love Always (3/5)
36) Hampton, K. Bloom: Finding Beauty in the Unexpected (4/5)
37) Robbins, A. The Overachievers: The Secret Lives of Driven Kids (3/5)
38) Chow, Cara. Bitter Melon (3/5)
39) Gottschall, J. The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human (4/5)
40) Hoffman, Alice. The Dovekeepers (5/5)
Novels:16
Textbooks/Writing books:6
Memoirs/biographies:10
Psychology/Neuroscience: 8
Currently reading: Finch, D. The Journal of Best Practices: A Memoir of Marriage, Asperger Syndrome, and One Man's Quest to Be a Better Husband.
9 comments:
Oh I heard the interview with the author of the guy-escaping-from-North-Korea book and I seriously want to read it (but I know it's really upsetting). I'm interested to see your response to it!
Also, dang girl, forty? I don't think I've done forty of anything.
Yeah, I'm really excited to read it. A girl in my Intercultural Communications class recently did a presentation about North Korea and I realized that about 60% of what I know about the country comes from Team America... Oops. So I intend to rectify that. I'll send it your way if it's any good :)
Lisa Ling did a documentary for NatGeo that's up on Netflix. Still with an extremely heavy Western bias (you're not going to find information on NK that doesn't have a strong Western bias, except for maybe that book...) but interesting nonetheless.
There's also a short film called "Deface", but I don't even know where one would find it. Here is the trailer though. SCAD screened it one year.
I read it today. It was really good :) It was written by an American journalist, but I feel he did a fair job of creating an honest context that was as unbiased as possible.
Forty books already!?!? I'm ahead of my usual pace and I'm only on number 25. Wow!
Congrats on 40 Books! You make my goal of fifty two seem pretty small. If you are interested in American pow survivors, you may want to try Unbroken by Lisa Hillenbrand.
-Ethan
http://e135-abookaweek.blogspot.com/
Thanks, guys!
Ryan- you are such a cerebral reader that I would be thrilled to have read 25 books by now if I was holding myself to your standards!
Ethan- I'm thrilled that you said that!! Unbroken is one of the books I own that I have not yet read! It is on the very short list for this month!
I'll echo Ethan and Ryan's sentiments--40 books already? Holy crap, girl! My hat's off to you. Keep it up. I want to see 100 by the end of the year!
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